This morning, ISP iinet relased their pricing and plans for the NBN. The pricing, which will be dependant on the data quota and speed, will be applicable on the NBN which comes out of trial phase mid-October. The pricing relased by iinet will be be split into 3 plans, which are dependant on the amount of data used, then categorised by connection speed. The plans are said to offer a considerable saving to users in regional areas of Australia, some as much as 40% the CEO of iinet reported.

On Wednesday of this week, the national broadband network established it's first connections into newly built homes. The NBN Co Chief Executive, Mike Quigley, confirmed that the newly built homes at the Bunya Estate in Doonside, western Sydney were connected to the national broadband network. The homes are not trial sites as Mr. Quigley confirmed, all residents will be eligible to access the service from a retail service provider.

NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley says the rollout of high-speed internet, in SA, and across Australia is on track. This is despite contractual issues with the government-owned electricity provider stalling efforts in South Australia. While every other mainland state has a schedule in place for stage two of the national broadband rollout, SA remains in limbo after contract negotiations between NBN Co and The Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA) broke down.

Diverse sectors of the telco industry are rallying to combat an escalating skills shortage, forecast to worsen in the coming months and years – with the notable exception of NBN Co, which has a backlog of applicants for jobs not yet created yet. Launch Recruitment, whose local client base includes Macquarie Telecom, Vividwireless and Huawei, sees challenging times ahead for telcos looking to recruit.

The National Broadband Network Company this morning revealed it would deploy Citrix-based desktop and application virtualisation to help provide services to its burgeoning workforce – including third-parties which need access to its systems.

NBN Co is considering an option that would allow users to attach an extra optical network terminal (ONT) to their house, effectively expanding the number of service providers they could use.

THE National Broadband Network could affect IT salaries in the next three to six months with a skills shortage looming in the industry. The September Clarius Skills Index, released yesterday, revealed a skills shortage of more than 2800 computing professionals across Australia.